


Shine Around Me (Like A Million Suns)

by astrangerenters



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-11
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-09 14:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/456752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The interstellar ferry <i>Shirase</i> is en route to the Epsilon Eridani star system ten light-years from Earth, a journey that will take 500 years. The ship is carrying 7500 cryo-frozen souls to a new planet. This is the story of those who gave all of themselves to see their people home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shine Around Me (Like A Million Suns)

_Sounds of laughter, shades of life  
Are ringing through my opened ears  
Inciting and inviting me.  
Limitless undying love, which  
Shines around me like a million suns,  
It calls me on and on across the universe_  
-The Beatles, Across The Universe

\--

His lungs forgot how to be lungs.

Cold. His brain was trying to tell him this when the beeping started. He was so cold. 

"This will hurt, I'm sorry," he heard, and he couldn't get his eyes to open. They'd forgotten what they were, too. It suddenly didn't matter that he couldn't see or that he was cold. That was nothing. Because he couldn't breathe. Beep beep beep. His ears were working, though. Beep beep beep.

"Don't yank it like that. Slow down."

"If we don't hurry, he'll go into cardiac arrest. It needs to come out now!"

It hurt. It _hurt_ , and he gagged, gagged with no relief in sight. He could feel his muscles starting to remember, his brain weakly directing his arms up so his hands could claw at his throat. He could feel the walls of the tank under him, all around him. He vaguely seemed to remember lying down in this thing. They'd said it wouldn't hurt. Completely painless procedure, they'd said. Liars.

He felt something warm on his forehead, moving his hair aside. Someone's hand. "Almost," this one said. It was a third voice. Older, calmer. "Almost there."

He felt something come up and out of his throat, slithering and scraping along his tongue, and he gagged even more as it was taken out. He must have been asleep already when they'd put that in. 

"He's disconnected," said the gentle voice, nearly drowned out by the beeping. "Up, up and onto the table."

There were hands on him, and he could hear the liquid sloshing around his body as they lifted him out of the tank. Right. He was naked. He seemed to remember having to strip down, the lack of privacy screens in the facility. Things had been pretty chaotic then. But he had problems bigger than being completely naked in front of strangers now. It was colder still outside of the tank, and his throat burned. It burned, and still he kept gasping for air.

Someone pulled one of his eyes open, putting in drops, repeating the gesture with his other eye. Whatever the liquid was, it burned. How many kinds of burning did he have to deal with now? He tried to scream, ended up wheezing. 

"Sho-kun, we need to warm you up," came that voice. The voice who was being nice to him. "Aiba-chan, close it up."

Sho heard a hissing noise. The beeping was replaced with a new beeping sound, and Sho opened his eyes, blinking rapidly. The eye drops had helped his eyes remember. Out of one box and into another, he realized in horror as white walls seemed to close him in. Screaming was still beyond him when it shut. He couldn't hear their voices, couldn't hear anything. But his breathing came back. It still hurt, but it came back just as his vision had, as the ability to move his limbs had. He was warming up.

He had to endure this. Because they were here at last, though in Sho's estimations it had felt like five hours since he'd fallen asleep and not five hundred years. He hadn't done too much research on the post-freezing procedures. Everything in the literature had mostly spoken about what was awaiting them here in their new star system, the existing colonies waiting here for him and the others onboard. Their new world.

So several minutes later when the white walls vanished and he felt a blanket wrap around him, Sho finally felt a bit better. The initial trauma of being unfrozen had shocked his system, but now the machine had regulated his body temperature. His throat ached, his body was sore from lack of use, but he was here. This was what everyone else was probably dealing with now that they'd touched down. 

He'd been asleep for so long without knowing it, but even now his eyelids felt heavy. This was probably normal too, he assured himself. Centuries in suspended animation wasn't the best thing for the human body, even the literature had said as much. He felt sharp little pricks of pain. Someone was trying to find a vein, poking at his hand so they could hook up an IV. He'd gone centuries without eating or drinking.

"Sho-kun."

He turned his head slowly, away from whichever member of the medical staff was sticking the needle in him to find a white-haired old man with a kindly face watching him. He had to be in his 80's, wrinkled and looking rather frail as he stood beside the table Sho'd been placed on. 

As Sho felt whatever drugs they were start to kick in, he saw the old man's face fill with sorrow, his eyes flooding with tears.

"Sho-kun, I'm so sorry."

\--

When Sho woke again, he could hear the steady thrumming of medical machines all around his bed. He still had the IV in his hand, and he sat up slowly. His fingers found his still sore throat, massaging the skin there. 

He was in some sort of medical lab, a small one maybe the size of his living room at home. Though it was silly to think of home. The apartment he'd lived in was more than ten light-years away. He was in a bed now, so he'd slept right through them moving him from the cryo chamber where his tank had been. The lights in the room were dimmed, and the humming from his machines was a nice reminder that he was alive.

He really was alive. It was something the naysayers had been frightened of back on Earth. They turn you all into popsicles, they'd always been writing on the Net. Freeze you and ship you off, but can they promise that you'll wake up? It was enough to scare off some of Sho's co-workers, his uncle's family. 

There'd been room on the massive fleet of ships for the entire Japanese population, but he knew that his ship, the Shirase, had launched with only three-fourths of the tanks full. They'd even staggered the launches in case people changed their minds later on and still wanted to go. The Shirase had been in the seventh wave - even now the first ships had been here in the new star system for more than a decade, laying the groundwork for ships like the Shirase and the others who'd launched afterwards.

He wondered what awaited him on the other side of the door.

Sho fumbled around with the blankets, finding a small call button beside the bed and pressing it. He was awake now. Not the frightened, nightmarish awakening he'd had as he'd been revived. He would never forget that for as long as he lived, but it was a small price to pay for a brand new life away from the decaying, sad end of Earth.

The door to the lab slid open with a whoosh, and the lights flickered on. It wasn't the old man from before. Instead it was a man who looked about Sho's age, late 20's or early 30's, with a mop of brown hair dressed in a plain white tunic and white pants. Sho almost laughed. He'd gone to the freezing in jeans and a t-shirt - maybe dressing in all white was the new normal. 

The guy grabbed a small chair with wheels, and it squeaked across the linoleum as he pulled it up to Sho's bedside. It was only when the lights were fully on, and he was looking right at the guy that he realized he wasn't human.

"Whoa," Sho said, squirming around and nearly dislodging the needle from his hand. 

There'd been one for every ship, the androids. They looked human in every way except for the glowing red light on the side of their neck (and of course their mechanical innards). They served as the pilot, guiding the ships full of frozen Japanese, frozen Americans, frozen Kenyans, everyone across the stars to their new home. Why was he coming to Sho personally? 

"I'm Aiba," the android introduced himself. He yanked a clipboard from a slot on the wall, pulling a pen from his pocket. "And if you still have a sore throat, that's my fault and I'm sorry. Just a few simple questions to check on your brain, okay? Your name?"

Sho tried to adjust to the reality of an android speaking to him, but if this Aiba had come into the room wearing a turtleneck shirt Sho would have had no idea he wasn't human. Everything about his movements was fluid, normal. He tried to speak, found that he still had a voice. It seemed that the unfreezing process had left everything working okay, though he hadn't tried to pee yet.

"I'm Sakurai Sho," he said.

"Good," Aiba praised him. "Excellent. Your mother's first name?"

"Hiroko."

"Your date of birth?"

"The 25th of January, 2182."

"Perfect. And the date the Shirase launched?"

"The 14th of July, 2212."

"Which makes you?"

"Thirty years old." Or five hundred and thirty, Sho thought with a grin.

Aiba smiled, and Sho decided that androids had pretty nice smiles. "Well done, Sho-san. Names, dates, do I dare ask you some math problems? I've got some scratch paper."

Sho found himself chuckling despite himself. "I didn't expect a pop quiz upon arrival. So tell me, am I still on the ship? Are we down on the ground yet?"

Aiba's smile faltered slightly, and he slipped the clipboard back after writing some things down. The lab door slid open again, revealing the old man. Sho was confused, watching the old man toddle over. Aiba got out of the chair and let the other man sit in it.

"Vitals are normal," Aiba informed him. "I think it's safe to say that he made it through without any permanent brain damage."

The old man nodded. "Thank you, Aiba-chan. I'll handle it from here."

Aiba nodded and took off, leaving Sho alone with the old man. "Hello Sakurai-san, I am the Caretaker."

Sho thought the man had called him Sho-kun earlier when he'd first been woken, but maybe he'd just been imagining it. The man sat calmly with his gnarled hands folded in his lap. "The Caretaker of what?"

"Of this ship," the man said. "The Shirase."

So he was still on the ship. "Have I done something wrong? Am I not able to go down to the planet yet?"

The Caretaker looked pained. Sho didn't remember anyone called a "Caretaker" when he'd arrived for freezing. The Shirase was meant to hold ten thousand tanks and the android pilot, just like all the other ships. An uneasy feeling began to settle in Sho's stomach. 

The IV in his hand was starting to itch as Sho waited for this Caretaker to speak.

"Sakurai-san, what I am about to tell you will be hard to handle. And I am truly sorry."

Sho clutched at his blanket, suddenly missing the sights and smells of his apartment, the sounds of the Tokyo trains. Everything he'd left behind. "Has the ship gone off course? Is the star system unsuitable for sustaining life? Has the terraforming failed?"

The Caretaker reached a hand out, twining his wrinkled old fingers with Sho's. "Sakurai-san, you are still on board the Shirase that left the Earth in 2212. But it is not 2712 and we are not in the Epsilon Eridani system." Sho felt like his heart was going to stop beating. "It is 2556, and you've been woken early."

"Woken early?" Sho managed to whisper. "What do you mean? How?"

"Your cryo-chamber experienced a malfunction, and we could not repair it," the Caretaker said slowly in his calm, gentle voice. "You would have died if we didn't revive you now. I am very sorry."

Sho slipped his hand away from the old man's. 

No, it couldn't be 2556. Because they had promised he would wake in 2712 in a new star system. His tank on the Shirase had been beside his father's, near his mother's, his sister's, his brother's. Several of his co-workers and close friends were on this ship, a few dozen others scattered across the other ships that had launched in the seventh wave.

They were all supposed to arrive together, wake together. Start a brand new life together. He'd had everything perfectly planned out. How the hell could he simply _not be there yet_?

"No," Sho told the old man. "You must be wrong. I...I can't be awake now. I can't. My family is..."

"They are all still frozen. Aiba-chan examined and checked their tanks himself. They are safe."

"But you don't understand!" he said, found his voice rising right along with his blood pressure. "Can't you put me back? Can't you just re-freeze me?"

"I am sorry."

Sho yanked the blankets off, tore the tape off his hand and winced as he slid the IV out of his skin, seeing bright red blood, his own blood, proof he was alive. But he wasn't supposed to be alive _now_. Not with over a century and a half to go. 

"Sakurai-san," the Caretaker said, trying to get to his feet despite his age. But Sho was beyond caring, pacing the floor of the lab in his bare feet as the machines screamed in panic. "We cannot re-freeze someone who has already endured the process. Your body cannot physically handle it, and you would surely die."

"Put me back!" he screamed. "If it's 2556, put me back!" He'd endure whatever tubes they had to shove down his throat, whatever they'd put in his eyes. He'd deal with the cold. "I can't be here! I need to be with them!"

"That's impossible. Believe me, I understand how you feel..."

"Who the hell are you?" he shouted. If it was 2556 and his family and friends woke in 2712, Sho would be long dead. "How the hell could you possibly understand what this feels like?"

The door slid open, and the android was back, holding up his hands in peace. "Caretaker-san, are you okay?"

"Is _he_ okay?" Sho screeched at the damn robot. The robot who'd smiled and calmly asked him for his mother's name. "Put me back in the fucking tank!"

The Caretaker waved Aiba off, walking over to block Sho's way. "If we could, we would. And Sakurai-san, we cannot. How do I know how you feel? Because this happened to me, too."

Sho's anger and grief were consuming him. He didn't care about what had happened to this stupid old man. He didn't care about anything but what he'd just realized he'd lost. He'd left the Earth behind him, confident in everything they'd told him. But now he was awake, and he could never go home again.

He had to make sure they weren't lying, that this wasn't a cruel joke after all. He was in medical scrubs, similar to the way they'd dressed the robot up, so at least he wouldn't be taking a naked walk.

"Move," he told the old man, told Aiba, and they obediently stepped aside.

Sho's hand ached, and his body was still adjusting to moving around again as he walked right out of the lab and into the chilly corridor. He remembered entering the Shirase on freezing day. It was a simple ship, a ferry for the frozen just like all the others. A small command deck at the top of the ship, the freezer level with all the tanks beneath, and below that an engine room and an enormous cargo hold.

He made his way down the corridor, finding a door marked "Bridge" at the end of it. The door slid open without a problem. There was a third person in here, a man with dark hair sitting in a seat in front of some control console. But it didn't maintain Sho's attention for long. He held on to the doorway, nearly falling down in his horror. It was true. The old man hadn't lied.

The bridge of the Shirase wasn't large. Just a few seats and panels and only three walls. The fourth was nothing but slanted glass, offering an unobstructed view of the outside. When the Shirase launched, the view out of it was probably the polluted, gray Tokyo skies. Sho had expected to wake on a new planet in a new star system with the promised glow of the star Epsilon Eridani welcoming him.

Instead there were stars. Thousands of tiny little lights against an endless blanket of black. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, neverending stars. And it was also the worst thing he'd ever seen. He stumbled forward, holding on to one of the other seats on the bridge. He could feel tears in his eyes. Something Aiba could check off on his clipboard. Sho could still cry.

"No," he muttered. "It can't be."

He was still in the middle of space, the emptiness of space. His parents, his family, his friends. They were all frozen in the levels beneath his feet, and when they woke, they'd be able to walk on terraformed soil in a new star system, a new planet. They would wake in 2712 without him.

"2556," the person in the room confirmed for him. It was a man, similar in age to him and Aiba. Human, dressed in the same white clothes. He wore a sharp expression, and his eyes didn't radiate kindness like the old man's, didn't express good cheer like Aiba the android. This man was furious. "About four and a half light-years to go. Welcome."

Sho felt utterly hollow with the confirmation, and when he saw Aiba approach with a needle, probably some knock-out drugs, he didn't even protest.

\--

When he woke again, he wasn't in that medical lab but a real bed. The walls were blank, empty, though not as empty as Sho now felt. He remembered the stars outside the ship, the affirmation that this was his life now. He got out of the bed, stretched his limbs. He was done with sleeping for a while. 

If this was his reality, maybe he had to face it straight on. He'd been a reporter before he'd been frozen in that tank. Being angry or depressed wasn't going to change anything. But what he wanted at the very least was all the facts about this place.

There was a simple chest of drawers opposite the bed, the only other furniture save for a bedside table. Inside Sho found several plastic-wrapped sets of white clothes. Nothing but the basics for a five-hundred year journey. He tore off the wrapper and changed from the itchy scrubs and into the new clothes. They were a little softer, if a bit stiff from more than two hundred years in plastic wrap waiting to be opened. There were white slippers in the drawers as well, and when he looked at himself in the mirror he felt almost like a patient in a mental ward. Black hair shaggy and mussed, dark bags under his eyes, oddly-fitted white clothes, and red scratch marks on his neck from his own fingernails when they'd woken him. They'd bruise and purple to match his eyes soon enough.

The door slid open for him, and he found himself in the same corridor as earlier. The command deck ran about a third of the length of the ship. For a ship designed to only have an android pilot, there were plenty of spaces like the room Sho had just been inside. Maybe it was a contingency plan in case more people got screwed over like Sho and had their tanks fail. Maybe it really had happened before, and people had been forced to spend their entire lifetime living this way. The way Sho would have to now.

He made his way back to the bridge, this time more sullen than angry. The third man from before wasn't there, only the Caretaker and Aiba, who was in the pilot's seat. The Caretaker looked up from where he was stargazing, offering Sho a weak smile.

"Let's take a walk," the Caretaker said.

The old man got to his feet, bringing Sho away from the bridge and together they slowly made their way back down the corridor. For Sho's sake, he was kind enough to launch straight into an explanation.

"What we didn't know when this ship launched was that the android wasn't the only person meant to watch over it," the man explained. "If the people had known beforehand, they'd have been more hesitant in agreeing to go. You see, even androids have their failings, and if the android has a bug, well, then goodbye to everyone on board."

"Why not make more androids?" Sho asked.

The old man grinned. "I guess we weren't willing to put our fates entirely into their hands. It's programmed into the computer, and a human has been selected since the very first year of the launch to serve as the ship's Caretaker. Someone with decent leadership skills is revived, and we serve at Aiba's side for the rest of our lives. We monitor the tanks, keep the ship in working order, ensure that the Shirase stays on course."

So the Caretaker had been woken early too. Whoever he was, he'd been in Sho's position, waking up thinking he was at his destination only to discover that wasn't the way of it. 

"I was resentful at first," the Caretaker admitted to Sho as they reached a lift at the end of the corridor. "Maybe for the first few years. I didn't want to be a leader here. I wanted to be with my family, my friends. But it's important, getting everyone home. It's a special duty."

The door closed and the Caretaker pressed a button for the freezer level.

"And I'm not alone. I was the eighth person woken for this purpose since the Shirase launched," the man explained. "Those people had to watch over the ship, sacrificing the years of their lives to be of service. How could I be selfish and refuse? If I didn't take charge and help Aiba-chan, then someone else would have to be unfrozen. I guess you could say it helped me to grow up."

They arrived at the freezer level, and Sho followed the man out. Where the command level had been nothing but fluorescent lights and stark, white walls, the freezer level was darker. It stretched out before them in long metallic aisles. Even from here Sho could see glowing lights and row after row of tanks. Of people, sleeping and waiting to reach their new home. Putting their faith in Aiba to get them there, and unknowingly, putting their faith in the Caretaker to watch over them.

"When did you wake up?"

They paused at the end of an aisle, the Caretaker leaning against the wall of tanks. "I was just about your age when we launched. And I'm 84 now. So me and Aiba-chan, I guess you can say we've been friends for almost 55 years."

"But he hasn't aged a day," Sho muttered.

The old man smiled. Even though Aiba wasn't human, he was clearly fond of him. "I do envy him that," the old man admitted. "But that's what helps in the long run, having Aiba-chan around. If it had been me by myself or me and anyone else, I would have put myself out the airlock by now."

Sho shuddered at the thought of it, and the old man took his hand and squeezed.

"I am truly sorry for what has happened, Sho-san. And believe me when I say that I understand what you have just lost. If we could put you back, believe me, we absolutely would. It's cruel and unfair that we can't. But there is a life here. Not the one you'd planned for, but there is food and some entertainment and good people." He grinned sadly. "Well, Aiba's been around humans long enough that he's more of one than you'd think."

They were interrupted then by the sound of someone else walking down the aisles of tanks, their footfalls heavy and with purpose.

"Caretaker-san," the person said coldly, coming around the corner. It was the third person, the one who'd looked at Sho with cruelty in his eyes. That much hadn't changed. "You shouldn't be down here. I can take care of this myself."

The Caretaker nodded. "I was just talking with Sho-san."

The man raised one of his eyebrows at the both of them. He had bright brown eyes, and they were nearly impossible to look away from. They sucked Sho in even as he was desperate to look away. Nobody had ever looked at him that way before, with such contempt. "He shouldn't be down here either."

Sho swallowed uncomfortably, wondering what he could have possibly done to make this man hate him so much. He shifted from foot to foot, itching to go back to the upper level of the ship, anywhere but near this man. But the Caretaker was still holding his hand, and he didn't dare wrench himself away from the old man's grip. Perhaps the only reason Sho was still alive was because of the Caretaker's intervention.

"Sho-san, I would like you to meet Matsumoto Jun. He is my replacement."

The future Caretaker of the Shirase then, the man who would spend the rest of his life at Aiba's side. And, Sho realized, the only other human Sho would ever know. "Then Matsumoto-san was..."

"Also revived," the old man said sadly. "How long has it been now, Jun-kun?"

Jun still looked cold, unfeeling. Sho could sense the man's hostility in the flare of his nostrils, the cruel twist to his lips. "Eight months, seventeen days," he said, making Sho flinch. "But who's counting?"

The Caretaker didn't seem to react to Jun's callous manner. Perhaps because he had been there himself fifty-five years ago, woken from his slumber and told he would be responsible for keeping the ship going. "Jun-kun is still in training. But I'm confident that he'll do well after I pass on."

"You should both return to the command deck," Jun said, his expression not softening in the least. Sho didn't like him. Not one bit, which of course boded well for the remaining years of his life. The Caretaker was in his 80's and the only other person on board was a robot. 

"Very well, Jun-kun, we'll leave you to your work."

The old man urged Sho along to the lift, and as soon as they were inside, Sho let out a shuddering breath and the Caretaker laughed.

Sho leaned back against the wall, unable to shake the intensity of Jun's hatred for him. "He doesn't like me," Sho exhaled.

"He will in time. He _is_ stuck with you for the rest of his life, after all."

Sho still wasn't fond of that idea. "What did I ever do to him? It's not my fault my tank broke."

"No," the Caretaker admitted, "it's not. Jun is a good kid. I could not have found a better person to take charge of the Shirase. From the beginning, he's accepted responsibility despite what he has lost. He cares about this ship and the people he has to protect. I wouldn't be surprised if he has every single tank down there memorized already. But he is a stubborn person. I think he had just resigned himself to his new reality so firmly that your arrival has upset him. But he'll come around, I have no doubt about that."

Sho shrugged. "You'd think he'd be glad to have someone else around. It's not like I'm any happier to be stuck here."

They headed for what would now be Sho's room. The Caretaker tugged open the top drawer of the bedside table, pulling out a small touchscreen device. "This is yours. I had Aiba-chan program it for you."

Sho took it, feeling the lightness of it between his fingers. "What is it?"

"Your diary, if you wish. It records video or just your voice, whatever you prefer. All of the previous Caretakers have used them as a way to speak to their families and loved ones. To leave a bit of themselves behind so that when the Shirase reaches its destination we won't be forgotten. So our sacrifices are not in vain."

Sho could feel tears forming in his eyes at the reminder of all he'd lost, at the sorrow his parents would feel upon waking without him. "I am not a Caretaker though," he whispered. "I'm just an accident."

"That's not true," the old man told him, and Sho really wanted to believe the sincerity in his eyes. The eyes that had seen nothing but this ship for so many years. "You're here now with us, and you don't have to be a mere passenger. Aiba-chan can train you to help out, make use of your time here."

"But isn't Jun the future Caretaker?" Maybe that's why Jun loathed him so much without even knowing him - maybe he thought Sho was a replacement.

The old man smiled at him. "It can't hurt to have a partner."

\--

A few weeks passed far more quickly than Sho could have imagined. He thought being stuck on the Shirase, spending the rest of his life trapped here was the worst possible fate. It wasn't. 

He didn't stop hurting, though. It would be impossible to completely forget his family, his friends. The Caretaker told him that feeling would never go away, that it was normal to be upset. He found himself crying himself to sleep more nights than not. He found it easy to slip into melancholy when he was alone in his room or down the hall in the shower stall, getting clean with water that had been recycled again and again for over 200 years. But he was alive, and now that Aiba was training him, he found a new sense of responsibility. He wasn't entirely useless here.

Sho had spent the months before the Shirase's launch preparing for his new life. He'd gone to training sessions to learn construction skills, agricultural skills. The basics of the basics when it came to human civilization. After all, the human race had to start from scratch on their new world. Those skills, however, didn't come in so handy on board the ship.

He'd spent the first week learning the set-up of the bridge, discovering what all the different lights and gauges on the control panels meant. The Shirase was mostly on a set course, plotted out using the most basic of star charts they'd had when she launched. It was Aiba's job to mostly keep the ship on the same path, but with minor adjustments as needed to avoid asteroid fields or the pull of a gravitational field from anything else nearby. It was definitely a lot more difficult than driving a car on Earth had ever been. It required constant monitoring and some really sharp math skills to calculate any of the ship's moves, and Jun usually took a shift of a few hours each day with Aiba, who didn't need sleep, taking the rest. 

The engines and computer systems also needed attention. It would be months before Sho had everything memorized, but The Caretaker told him that's what Aiba was for. His android brain was a computer, after all. With Aiba mostly on the bridge managing the ship itself, it was The Caretaker's job to monitor the passengers.

Sho was happy that his training had not progressed to that point yet, allowing him to mostly avoid Matsumoto Jun. Aiba's programming had given him enough common sense to realize that Jun wasn't all too fond of the newest recruit, and whenever it was Jun's shift on the bridge, Aiba seemed to conveniently find something for Sho to learn somewhere else on the ship.

Aiba was the one constant Sho had found in this new life. He was kind and gentle and did his best to cheer Sho up. Aiba had seen Caretakers come and go, and he seemed to understand how difficult things were for them. If Sho wanted to sulk his way through a meal, missing the taste of his mother's cooking, Aiba would sit there patiently and listen to him reminisce. If Sho wanted to spend hours sitting alone in the freezer level in front of his family's tanks, Aiba would sit with him and say nothing at all. If Sho was really stuck here for the rest of his days, he was happy that Aiba would be with him.

He and Aiba were in the cargo hold that day for mandatory exercise - mandatory for Sho mostly. Living on a spaceship could easily get tedious, so the cargo hold had been repurposed by one of the earlier Caretakers. There was now a running track that weaved among the thousands of sealed up trunks and bins containing supplies and the passengers' belongings. Sho had only just started to think of everyone on board as passengers - and himself as something different entirely.

He was sweating like crazy, jogging along the track with Aiba, who looked in pristine condition. Of course, he always did. Sometimes Sho wished Aiba's inventor had programmed him to suffer just a little bit in situations like these. "Alright," Sho said as they made it around to the port-side stretch, "today you said you'd tell me about Becky-san."

"Becky-san," Aiba parroted back with a smile, and if Sho didn't know any better, he'd swear that Aiba was doing some android form of blushing.

Aiba had been aboard and had looked exactly the same since 2212. Ageless, he'd watched all of the Caretakers grow old and eventually pass away. He'd been talking to Sho about Caretaker after Caretaker, relating all the stories he had from the very first (the scary Sakamoto-san) to one of the more recent (the gentle Joshima-san). There was the current Caretaker and the one between him and Joshima-san left to be discussed.

There'd been two female Caretakers, Aiba had explained, but he didn't seem to speak as animatedly about Julie-san as he did about Becky-san. "She was just...well, she hated me from the moment Joshima-san and I unfroze her."

Sho chuckled. "Think about it from her side," he said as their shoes slapped the floor (they'd opened Sho's trunk to get some real sneakers to run in). "A young woman in the prime of her life who wakes up and has to spend the rest of her days with an old man and a robot. That's kind of depressing."

Aiba smiled, and the red light on his neck seemed to be throbbing with his memories. "Oh it got even worse when poor Joshima-san passed away. I thought Becky was going to put me out the airlock. She threatened to almost every day! 'Aiba-kun!' she'd always say to me, 'don't tell such lame jokes.' Or 'Aiba-kun, I'm getting wrinkles! Don't you dare look!'"

"And that changed I hope? If you had to be together for so long?"

"It changed," Aiba said, his voice trailing off.

Sho had learned that Aiba's programming allowed for some feelings. Feelings that seemed to be as real as anything Sho could feel. It was why Aiba smiled all the time, why he seemed so happy to think back to all the previous Caretakers and share their lives with him. He even grew upset when mentioning the deaths of some of them, since they were his only companions for so many years. Aiba did everything but cry, which he apparently was not programmed to do.

"Well?" Sho asked, prodding Aiba with his elbow. "How did it change?"

Aiba started to run faster, leaving Sho behind.

"Oi!" Sho called after him. "Cheating robot, you can't do that!" He hurried, trying to catch Aiba, who could dart around the track without ever tiring. He'd been designed with a long, lean body that would have been great for sports. Sho had played soccer back on Earth. He wondered if he could teach the sport to Aiba...

"She told me not to tell anyone!" Aiba was shouting, his voice echoing off the cargo hold walls. "I promised!"

Sho struggled to catch up, wheezing. Had Aiba...and the lady Caretaker? Had they...could they have... "You can't just lead me on! Come on, she's not here, tell me!"

They turned the corner and came to a screeching halt when they found Jun, arms crossed and waiting for them. It seemed that Sho wouldn't get the full story out of Aiba today.

"The Caretaker needs you," Jun said to Aiba. "I didn't think robots could lose track of time."

Sho was out of breath from running, trying to avoid Jun's glare. "My fault, I made...I made him keep going."

"Good," Jun snapped back. "Because we really need the ship's pilot taking orders from _you_."

Aiba smiled, patting Jun on the arm to try and mollify him. "Now now, Jun-chan, it's okay. No harm done. Sorry to make you come all the way down here. I apologize for neglecting my duties."

And since there was really no excuse Aiba could make to bring Sho along, he headed off for the lift, leaving Sho alone with the person who hated him most in the universe right now. After this many weeks dealing with Jun's attitude, the feeling was fairly mutual.

He was still exhausted from stopping his run so abruptly, moving over to sit down on one of the supply bins. This one probably held the makings of a future rice field. Sho hadn't been alone with Jun before. Jun always seemed to come up with some excuse to leave the room, and Sho was sick of it. There'd come a time when the Caretaker passed away and it would just be the two of them with Aiba. Sho couldn't spend the rest of his life avoiding the guy.

"I have things to do on the freezer level," Jun said, turning on his heel to go.

"Matsumoto-san, wait."

Jun paused. "There's no need for you to help. I have it covered."

"Can you just..." Sho lifted his shirt, trying to mop the sweat from his face. When he looked back, Jun was looking elsewhere, annoyed. "Do you have to be such a dick to me? All the time? What did I ever do to you? Seriously. It's not like I wanted to wake up."

Jun narrowed his eyes at him. "I have things to do on the freezer level," he repeated. "I am the future Caretaker of this ship. I'm just trying to do my job."

"Well," Sho mumbled, trying to come up with something to say. "Well, you're doing a pretty shitty job. Until a month ago, I was frozen too. But I'm technically still a passenger on this ship. I'm just a little more animated now. So if it's your job to watch out for the people on this ship, maybe you should watch out for me, too."

Jun walked up to where Sho was sitting, looking down at him with anger burning in his eyes. "Why did it have to be you?" Jun accused him. "That's what gets me. Sakurai-san, I don't know a thing about you. And I don't care to. But if you want to know why I'm a _dick_ to you, it's because you're here. I get to spend the rest of my life looking at your face. When it was just me and the Caretaker and Aiba, I could live with it. I understood my place and my responsibility. I didn't like it, but I understood it. But now you're here and I can't. Why did it have to be _you_?"

Sho pushed himself up off the bin, furious. Why did it have to be you, Jun had said, as if Sho was nothing. Nobody. As if Sho would have been better off dead. 

"What, you think I'm trying to take your job? You think the Caretaker is training me because you're not good enough? That he can't trust you to do it by yourself when he's gone? That maybe the computer picked you by accident?"

Jun laughed, bitterly and hard. "No. No, that's not what I think at all."

Sho thought Jun was going to punch him or drag him to an airlock and rid himself of his troubles once and for all. But instead he just laughed, and Sho thought he saw tears in the man's eyes as he walked off to the lift.

\--

The Shirase, despite its small crew, was a ship full of secrets. Aiba was pretty damn cunning for a robot, keeping his mouth shut about Becky-san, about Jun, and about the current Caretaker himself.

Sho got the idea that there had been...something between Becky and the android, as odd as it was to imagine. But then again, Becky had been woken at age 20 and Joshima-san had died three years after, leaving her and Aiba the only two on the ship for the next seven decades. Sho didn't really want to ask Aiba if he was capable of anything physical, but with the way Aiba said Becky's name, something had to have happened. Well, Sho figured, he had the rest of his life to get Aiba to tell him.

As for Jun, Aiba claimed to not know much about him other than his personal records, the file that the computer had scanned through and used to pick him as the next Caretaker of the ship. When Sho asked Aiba why Jun was so angry, the android would just shrug his shoulders and say "he's angry for the same reasons you are," as if that answered anything. Of course anyone in their situation would be angry and resentful, taken away from their loved ones. But Jun's anger was more than that, or it felt that way to Sho. Jun was always respectful with the Caretaker, teasing with Aiba. Sho was the only one who earned outright hostility.

And if that wasn't enough, Aiba was keeping quiet about the man Jun would be replacing.

Aiba had referred to all of the Caretakers by name, from Sakamoto-san to Becky, but when Sho had asked him about the current man in charge, Aiba clammed up. Sure, he told Sho stories about the two of them narrowly getting the ship out of the way of a comet's trajectory forty years earlier, about the songs the Caretaker had loved on Earth and had taught Aiba to sing. He knew all of the Caretaker's favorite foods. But when Sho asked for the Caretaker's name, Aiba wouldn't tell him.

"He told me to forget what his name was," Aiba explained while Sho was eating one day. "He had it erased from the computer banks."

"Why the hell would he do that?"

Aiba shrugged as he always did when a difficult question arose. "I don't know, every Caretaker's different. Maybe he wanted a fresh start in this new life."

"But you still remember his name, Aiba. Your brain's a computer."

Aiba dared to smirk at him. "Well, of course I remember it. But I won't disobey him."

Sho sighed, setting down his chopsticks. His food for eternity was preserved instant rice and freeze-dried toppings to put on said rice. Freeze-dried protein, freeze-dried vegetables, freeze-dried everything along with regular vitamin supplements to keep them healthy. The men and women who had launched the Shirase hadn't thought about the need for comfort food. Sho wished that he'd thought to pack some snacks or at least some soy sauce in his trunk, but he hadn't expected to wake up halfway to his destination. 

Maybe the more logical tack was to ask the Caretaker himself. Of course, the man was elderly, and as the days went on, Sho realized that he was unwell. He spent most of the day in bed now after his long years of service. He was in pain, Sho eventually understood, seeing Aiba vanish into the small medical lab with the Caretaker once or twice a day. Maybe he was dying, and things between Jun and Sho would fully erupt into chaos. Only Jun's respect for the Caretaker seemed to be keeping things from exploding.

When he wasn't asleep, the old man liked to sit on the bridge and look at the stars. Sho found himself trying to stay on the bridge with him in hopes that the Caretaker would open up. What was the point in hiding who he was?

While Aiba monitored the controls, Sho sat under the stars with the old man, watching his eyes drift along, how peaceful they were. He'd been Sho's age when he'd been woken. What had he looked like then? Where had he lived on Earth? What family did he have on the ship? What friends? Sho decided that the only way to get the Caretaker talking was to talk himself.

"I was down on the freezer level yesterday," Sho said quietly, seeing the old man's wrinkled, swollen hands resting peacefully in his lap. "I brought my recording tablet down, shot some video of my family's tanks. So they can wake up and see how I saw them."

"Sounds a little morbid," the Caretaker said with a grin.

"Oh, I don't doubt that," Sho replied. "But I don't know, it might be good for them to see, to know what they missed out on. I've been recording messages like crazy."

It was true. Aiba had suggested that Sho leave videos and recordings for anyone he could think of, not just his family. He promised that when they arrived on their new world that he would distribute them to anyone, no matter how many people it was, no matter what ship they'd been on, no matter how long it took. So Sho could be remembered by hundreds of people rather than just a handful.

"Tell me who you've recorded them for," the old man requested.

"One for Gabriella," Sho said wistfully. "Hell, I don't even know if she was on any of the ships. You know how many were leaving from all over Earth then. But she was an exchange student from Hungary when I was in junior high. She didn't know much Japanese, and I don't know any Hungarian, so I was kind of stuck. I liked her, well, I thought I liked her. I don't know, she just popped into my mind, this girl I knew for a few months. So I made her a video."

"That's good," the Caretaker said. "I'm sure she'll appreciate it."

Sho told the old man about a few dozen videos he'd made. He'd made several for his family. One for Koyama-kun, who'd been in the same department at work. One for Keiko-chan, his next door neighbor in his apartment complex. Another for Tsubasa, his high school friend. His boss, his cousins, his university professors, no matter how simple the connection, Sho wanted to reach out. 

"I even made one for Ohno-san," Sho said, chuckling at the thought of it.

The Caretaker looked at him strangely. "Ohno-san?"

Sho smiled. "Ohno Satoshi-san. He worked at the convenience store I visited after work every day. I mean, it feels like only a short time ago that he and I met up, but I guess he's been gone for years now."

"Gone?" the Caretaker asked. 

"When my family and I decided to leave in the seventh wave, I told Ohno-san to come with us. He was a simple guy, you know, quiet and straightforward. He told me, 'Sho-kun, I can't go into space. It's cold there.' As if it being cold was the biggest thing to worry about. Not the Earth becoming uninhabitable or the ships not reaching Epsilon Eridani. No, he was just worried that it was going to be cold."

The Caretaker nodded. "Well, maybe he didn't know the ships have climate control. Or that he'd sleep through it anyhow."

Sho smiled, fondly remembering the little shop down the street, the calm 'Welcome' Ohno would always greet him with. Whenever Sho had endured a stressful day at work, he could always count on the man to be there without fail. He'd been small with spiky hair and was very slow when it came to counting out change.

"So I made it my mission to get him to sign up with the seventh wave. Every day after work I'd find an excuse to buy something, and I'd show him the pamphlets and all that. I'd record the news programs about the launches, the medical stuff about suspended animation. Hell, I ordered copies of the star charts from JAXA to give to him."

"Why?"

Sho was increasingly lost in his memories, in the little things he'd never get back. "I honestly don't know. My uncle and aunt and their kids weren't coming with us. If there was anyone I should have been preaching to it was them, not some convenience store clerk who was too busy living at his own pace to want to bother with interstellar travel. I just...I don't know, I wanted to get to the new planet and still have the convenience store down the street, something familiar. I know how irrational it sounds, but I just wanted to hear Ohno-san's voice the same as my father's, my boss, my friends..." He chuckled, shaking his head. "And the truth is, I brought him all that stuff and I have no idea if he ever bothered to sign up or not. For all I know I recorded a video for someone who's been dead for over 200 years."

The Caretaker took his hand, and only then did Sho realize he'd started to cry. "It's good that you make those videos, Sho-kun," the old man assured him. "The videos aren't just about the people you make them for. They're for you. So what if it's for a shop clerk or a girl you barely knew. It's a way for you to cherish all the people you met."

Sho wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, feeling embarrassed. He'd wanted to learn more about the Caretaker and had just rambled about himself. "What about you?" he asked. "Do you make videos for people like that?"

"Of course. Jun-kun does too."

Sho couldn't imagine Jun taking the time to record a sentimental video. He was more robot than Aiba was, whether he was on the bridge perfectly calibrating the ship's shields or down on the freezer level checking and re-checking tanks. When did he even have time to do that?

Apparently the Caretaker could tell what Sho was thinking, squeezing his hand tightly. "He's suffered loss, Jun-kun has. He will take a long time to heal, but he will heal."

"But for now he enjoys using me as a personal punching bag," Sho muttered, "that is to say, whenever he isn't walking out of the room like the sight of me makes him want to puke."

The Caretaker was quiet then, and Sho heard movement. He looked up just in time to see Aiba turning back around quickly to look at the control panel. Very subtle, android. 

"Alright, come on, both of you," Sho said in frustration, getting to his feet. "Jun hates me. He really hates me, and the degree of that is not normal. And you know that. Can't you at least tell me why? If the future of the ship is at stake and he and I have to work together, we're screwed. Please."

He heard Aiba's voice then. "That's for Jun-chan to tell you."

"And when will that be, Aiba-san?" Sho spat back at him. "Ten years from now? Twenty? When we're older than the Caretaker here and Jun's so old that he forgets to hate me?"

The Caretaker nodded, getting to his feet. Sho regretted his outburst, feeling awful for yelling at the old man who had done nothing wrong and who had been Sho's champion and his friend ever since he had been unfrozen. "Aiba-chan, it's time."

Aiba's shoulders slumped, the red light on his neck pulsing with the closest thing the android had to disappointment. "Yes, sir. I'll watch the bridge. He's still asleep in his quarters."

"Walk with me, Sho-kun."

And back they went to the freezer level, the Caretaker moving along with his slow, pained steps. Sho followed at his heels, wondering just what he was about to be told. It took a while, wandering down a very long row of tanks. They were almost to the end when the old man stopped. Sho held his breath when he saw that the name "Matsumoto Jun" was on the nameplate above the tank.

"Nine months ago I discovered that I have cancer," the Caretaker said, and Sho felt a wave of sympathy flow through him. He'd been selfish, trying to uncover the man's secrets and Jun's as well. Like it was all a way to pass the time. "I had put off choosing a successor for years. The more time I could stay alive, I thought, the better for everyone. The longer the Caretakers live each generation, the fewer there need to be at all. But we don't have any sort of treatment on board for cancer. Pain medication, sure, but not much else."

"I'm sorry..."

"So Aiba and I went through the computer, narrowed down some candidates. And Jun-kun looked so perfect. He'd been a schoolteacher, back on Earth. What better person to shepherd the Shirase further along on its journey, we thought. So we woke him, revealed the truth to him, the same painful truth that Becky-san told me when I woke."

Sho immediately recalled being unfrozen, the pain, the uncertainty. And then the horrible realization that the life he'd known was over, and he would never get it back. Jun had endured that pain, too. And Jun had been woken on purpose - his life interrupted intentionally to serve the greater needs of the people on board.

"He was angry, as you were," the old man said, looking forlorn. "Your files only tell us so much. You remember, Sho-kun, before you were frozen. The profiles you filled out, the psychological and physical evaluations. In the computer, Jun looked perfect. But the computer can't tell us everything. The computer can't tell us about our hearts."

The old man stepped over, voice catching in his throat as he ran his fingers over the nameplate on the tank beside Jun's. Sho only then realized that it was empty, the same as Jun's was. "Ninomiya...Kazunari," Sho read aloud, hand brushing the empty tank.

"It was all Jun said in the first few days awake. Nino's name. 'Where is Nino?' he said again and again," the Caretaker explained. "He wanted Nino. He couldn't abandon him, someone he loved so much. Jun's family had gone ahead in the fourth wave, but Jun waited for Nino to be ready. I think Nino was a bit like your friend Ohno-san. He didn't want to go. But Jun-kun convinced him, told him they'd wake up together in the new star system."

"And with Jun as Caretaker..." Sho mumbled.

"Nino would wake up alone."

Sho mostly understood how Jun had felt, losing his family and friends in one fell swoop. But he hadn't lost a lover, a partner. But Nino's tank was empty now, the same as Jun's...

"He waited until Aiba-chan couldn't leave the bridge. We'd told him so many times that it was forbidden, that there could only be one Caretaker," the old man said, bowing his head low. "We'd only just shown him how to monitor the tanks the week before. He was all out of sorts, and I should have seen it coming. We couldn't get here fast enough..."

"Jun tried..." Sho muttered in horror, "he tried to revive Nino?"

There was nothing else to be said, Sho realized when the Caretaker looked away. Jun had tried...and failed to bring Nino back. Sho remembered his unfreezing, the pain and the cold of it. Had this Nino endured the same pain? Sho shut his eyes tightly at the thought of it, fingers moving unconsciously to his throat, to the memories of being unable to breathe. 

It made sense now, why Jun hated the sight of him. Sho's tank had malfunctioned, and there'd been enough time to get him out, to save him. _I get to spend the rest of my life looking at your face_ , Jun had told him in a burst of anger and only now Sho understood what he'd really meant.

Jun had inadvertently killed the one he loved the most. Jun had probably watched Nino die right in front of him...cold and confused and in the worst pain of his life. All the anger and resentment Sho felt toward Jun slipped away.

The Caretaker nodded. "So please, Sho-kun. Help Jun, but please let him grieve. He'll still need plenty of time to get over what has happened. He has so much love in his heart, and he's turned it to the people on this ship. He loves them, fiercely wants to protect them. His duty to them as Caretaker is all he has left."

Sho couldn't bear to look at the two empty tanks side by side a moment longer.

"I understand," he said quietly.

\--

As the weeks went on, the Caretaker started to slip away. Jun had insisted that the old man be confined to the medical lab so that he could receive a steady stream of pain medication. With Aiba needed to check in on him more often, ensure that he wasn't suffering, it fell to Jun to take on more responsibility on the ship. It also meant that the training that Aiba had been in charge of also fell to Jun.

If Jun knew that the Caretaker had shared his story with Sho, he never said anything about it. But with the reality of the Caretaker's inevitable departure weighing on him, Jun's anger seemed to dissipate. He was strict and firm when teaching Sho how to monitor the tanks on the freezer level, but he wasn't cruel. And Sho no longer allowed Jun's attitude to rub him the wrong way. He didn't talk back, didn't give Jun reasons to like him any less.

He was down on the freezer level with Jun that day, and they were reviewing the readouts on the control panels under each name plate. Jun pointed to the top of the panel.

"First readout."

"The first readout gives the tank's current condition. This light will be green , and it should always read 'operational,' and if it doesn't the light will blink red and emit a noise. The readout will say 'recalibration necessary.'"

"And the time frame before the tank goes into full shutdown mode?"

"Twenty-four hours," Sho replied, wondering how long his tank had said 'recalibration necessary' before they'd discovered him. He wondered what it had been like when Jun had tried to unfreeze Nino, if he'd intentionally let the light blink for a full day with the thought that Nino could then easily be revived or if he'd tampered with the system entirely to speed up the process.

"Excellent," Jun said, and Sho was startled out of his dark thoughts by the sudden praise. "Next readout."

"Passenger vitals. This light will also be green, and it should always read 'cryo 100%'. If the tank goes into shutdown mode, the light will turn red and the percentage will decrease until..." He turned to look at Jun, seeing his face, almost ghoulish from the glow of the lights on the panel and the subtle light that came from each tank. Sho looked back at the panel. "The percentage will decrease until death."

Jun turned, his slippers shuffling along the floor as they moved on. Sho had made a peace offering of sneakers a week earlier. Jun had accepted them with a polite 'thank you very much,' but he hadn't taken to wearing them yet. He was very by the book when it came to the clothing that was issued to the ship's Caretakers. Sho had retreated to the comfort of his t-shirts, his jeans, even his pajama bottoms. They'd probably wear out over time, but it felt more right to wear his own clothes than anything wrapped in plastic.

"Alright," Jun said when they reached the end of the row. "So basically what is the procedure during a shift down here?"

"Walk the aisles methodically, ensuring that each tank has two green lights. One with red will stand out anyhow."

"And how many tanks are you checking every time you're down here?"

"Every 12 hours, we examine half of the tanks so no 24 hour lapses are possible," Sho replied. "Roughly 3700 tanks every 12 hours."

Jun shook his head. "Don't give me roughly. Give me a number."

Sho nodded. Jun was exacting in all things. It made him a good instructor, Sho had to admit, and made him an even better Caretaker. Sho wondered if he'd ever be as diligent. "Three thousand, seven hundred twenty-two on this shift."

"For now, I'll do the first check of the day," Jun said. "You'll do second check, but Aiba has to be with you. Or myself, I suppose. Whichever you prefer."

Wow, Sho thought, concealing a grin. Was Jun actually offering to spend time with him? How far they'd come.

"So...I'll complete this check by myself. In case you have better things to do."

Sho itched to say something back, to snap at Jun and say of course he didn't have better things to do. He was stuck here forever. But he knew when he was being dismissed, and for the sake of the next fifty, sixty years of dealing with Jun, he nodded.

"I'll go check on the Caretaker."

He left Jun to his work, riding the lift up and walking to the medical lab. Aiba was gone, monitoring the ship from the bridge, while the old man lay in bed with a steady drip of meds keeping him from suffering. He was Caretaker in name only now, Sho thought as he sat down in the chair beside the bed, watching the rise and fall of the old man's chest. He'd done his duty, and Sho wondered if it would be the same for him, half a century on.

He and Jun would get to a point where a successor was necessary. Of course, Jun would be the one responsible for choosing. Sho wasn't the Caretaker, just a fortunate bonus so Jun's burden would be lighter over time. It would be Sho in this bed someday, or would it be Jun first? The thought chilled him. He obviously didn't want to imagine his own death, and after only a few months unfrozen he knew that he didn't want to imagine Jun's death either. They weren't exactly at peace, not yet, but he didn't wish the man ill. Jun was responsible for the safety of Sho's own family and friends on board, and he was glad with how seriously Jun took his mission.

"Sho-kun," the Caretaker mumbled in his sleep, and Sho grinned.

"I'm here," he replied quietly, not caring if the old man heard him or not. He only hoped the man's pain would end soon, even if it left them alone.

\--

He was sitting on his bed lacing up his sneakers when the door to his room slid open.

Jun stood there, frowning at him. "You know, I can teach you how to program this to lock," he said, rolling his eyes and gesturing to the control panel next to the door.

Sho shrugged, getting to his feet. "What's the point? It's not like any of you are coming in to rob me."

"I guess not."

Sho looked down, seeing that Jun had put on the sneakers Sho had given him. He was still in his white t-shirt and white slacks, but the sneakers were quite a big sign of improvement. 

Jun cleared his throat. "You're going to the cargo hold, right? To run?"

Sho nodded.

"I haven't in a while. I've been busy so..."

"You don't have to ask," Sho told him, feeling almost overwhelmed at the thought of Jun wanting to hang out with him outside of their duties. He pointed to his own t-shirt and shorts. "Are you going to be okay in those clothes? I've got stuff you can borrow."

Jun waved him off. "I have my own clothes. Let's go already."

And then Jun was gone, Sho's door sliding closed, and Sho hurried to catch up with him, following him to the lift with his water bottle. This was weird, Sho decided as he and Jun entered the lift together. This was really weird.

The lights in the cargo hold flickered on, triggered by their arrival. "I usually run with Aiba-kun," Sho said, making some awkward small talk as they both stretched. "I hope you don't run as fast as he does."

"Seeing as how I'm a human and not a robot, no, I don't," Jun replied, bending forward to touch his toes. 

Jun was a little larger than Sho was, with broader shoulders but a narrower waist. Sho had never really paid attention to Jun in a physical way, seeing as how Jun had spent most of the past few months avoiding him. But one thing was for certain. The guy Sho was spending eternity with was really attractive. Now Sho found that he couldn't look away from Jun's long, muscled arms, his neck, the collarbones visible under the low neckline of the standard issue shirt.

"Flexible," Sho murmured in awe when Jun bent completely in half with little trouble, not realizing he'd said so aloud.

Jun eyed him strangely when he got back up, making Sho look away. He knew his face was bright red in embarrassment. Great. Good job, Sakurai. Sho had made things an all new kind of awkward now. Before Jun had just hated his existence. Now there'd be this. Whatever _this_ was, Sho thought, admonishing his brain for doing a complete 180 on his feelings for Jun just because the guy was good looking and he'd never bothered to notice before.

Unlike Aiba, who didn't tire at all and could spend a 10k run talking animatedly to Sho about the previous Caretakers and life on the ship, Jun was a flawed human. He appreciated that Jun was quick to run at Sho's own pace, not speeding up or slowing down to take the lead. They didn't talk, and Sho just listened to the sound of their sneakers on the little path, the sound of his breathing and Jun's mingling in the massive open space of the cargo hold.

They seemed to tire at the same time, slowing down to rest. It was obvious to Sho that Jun hadn't run in a while. He looked exhausted, uncomfortable in the white pants that had to be itching him. Sho took pity on him, handing Jun his water bottle.

"Go ahead," he said with a chuckle. "You need this more than I do."

"Shut up," Jun grumbled, taking the water anyway.

"I told you not to run in those pants."

Jun looked embarrassed, pouring some of the water over his head, mumbling to himself.

"What was that?" Sho prodded, sitting down on one of the cargo bins. "I couldn't hear you. Were you admitting out loud that Sakurai Sho of all people might be right about something?"

Jun twisted the cap back on the water bottle and flung it at him, but not out of anger. He actually smiled, genuinely smiled, and Sho knew he was screwed now. Like he needed the added complication of being attracted to the only human he'd ever know for the rest of his life.

"Don't get cocky," Jun said. "I don't think you'll impress me until you can recalibrate a tank with one hand tied behind your back."

They both laughed, together, and it felt like the wall of ice that had stood between them from day one, colder than the tank Sho had spent three centuries in, was starting to melt.

\--

It was the end, Aiba said to him when Sho sat down to breakfast a month later. The Caretaker was refusing the pain meds, refusing to be cooped up in the medical lab any longer.

"He wants to see the stars," Aiba said, looking forlorn, every part of him in seeming grief. Even the light on his neck appeared dimmer, dulled with whatever type of pain had been programmed into his circuits.

They'd spend the day on the bridge, all four of them, with breaks so that Jun or Aiba could go down to the freezer level and monitor the tanks. While Aiba piloted the ship with his steady hands, Sho sat at the old man's side as he watched the clusters of light all around the Shirase. Jun had been down on the freezer level for an hour.

He was mostly out of it, ready to go at any moment, and Sho found it difficult to find words. There was really nothing to say. The old man had encouraged Sho from the very first to the very last. It would be hard to live without him, but that was simply the way of things. Soon the old man would be free of all his pain, and that would be a blessing, surely.

"Video," the old man said, eyes opening and closing with agonizing slowness. He weakly set his hand down on Sho's leg. "Video?"

Sho looked up at Aiba's back. "Aiba-kun, what does he mean? What video?"

Aiba stiffened at the console. "It's an order for me."

Sho turned, looked at the old man's face. The rounded cheeks, the friendly smile. He was almost gone, almost at peace. "What sort of order?"

"It's something I have to show you. Now," Aiba said, getting to his feet, pressing buttons on the panel to ensure that the Shirase would maintain its present course. "Sho-chan, now."

"We just...we can't just leave him in here by himself..."

But Aiba's insistent hand was on Sho's arm, tugging him to his feet. If androids could cry, Aiba would have been, but Sho didn't feel ashamed to cry for both of them.

Aiba brought Sho to what had been the Caretaker's room. Sho hadn't been inside before. He gasped, seeing that the white walls in here had been adorned with layer after layer of color. One wall was nothing but a frenzied cluster of reds and yellows. One giant sunrise. "Caretaker-san loves to paint. Well, he did," Aiba explained, "before his arthritis set in."

Sho felt an odd twist in his stomach as Aiba went to the old man's bedside table, picked up his tablet. "This is for you to watch," Aiba said quietly, queuing up one of the videos. "I'm going to sit with him."

Aiba left him alone, and Sho's hands shook as he pressed play on the video. It was the Caretaker on the screen, old and calm as the day Sho had been unfrozen. In fact, it _was_ the day he'd been unfrozen by the look of it. He was sitting at Sho's bedside in the medical lab, panning the video over to show just how Sho had looked then, completely out of it.

"Ah, Sho-kun," the old man said, the video returning to show his own face. "Do you know that I've watched over you for over fifty years? Not just you, of course, but everyone. It's not a job I ever thought I'd come to enjoy. But it's an odd twist of fate, not just having you on the ship and watching you, but of all the tanks to malfunction it had to be yours. I guess it makes all these years as a Caretaker worth it, that I was the one here to save you."

Sho's confusion grew. The Caretaker was speaking as if he knew him, had known him. Before.

"I just want to thank you, Sho-kun," the old man said. "I didn't quite get the adventure you told me to sign on for, but I suppose this wasn't so bad, really. Thank you. Thank you for everything. I'm really sorry for what happened. If anyone deserved to make it to a new world, it was you. Look at me, how chatty I've gotten in my old age. Aiba-chan says I've really changed." The Caretaker laughed. "Actually, I made a video for you, way back when. Back when I was still angry about what happened, but Aiba-chan, he told me to make one for everyone I knew, even the people I didn't know so well. That it would comfort me. And I'm glad I did. Well, goodbye, Sho-kun."

The video ended abruptly, the old man's face disappearing only for another video to queue up. It was shot on the freezer level, the light dim, and Sho had to squint to try and see what was going on.

"Who's down this aisle?" came a voice, a voice Sho hadn't heard in months, a voice Sho was convinced he'd never hear again. "Look at this sexy tank."

The video zoomed in on the nameplate over tank 4237, two green lights indicating the tank was functioning normally.

"It's Sakurai Sho-san~!" the voice crowed cheerfully, and the person crouched down, trying to awkwardly zoom in to show the tank's contents. Sho saw a splotch of black, probably his hair floating around inside. "Luckily it's your head at this end, or this would be some really odd fetish porn."

Sho nearly choked, caught somewhere between laughing and sobbing when the video cut again to show inside the Caretaker's room. The sunrise on the wall hadn't been painted yet. The tablet was set down by steady, firm hands that had always had trouble counting out change. There was a peace sign flashed at the camera before the person moved away to sit on the bed and address him.

"It's Ohno-san~!" came the man's voice as he waved at the camera. There he was, with his spiky hair and his round face, his tired eyes and easy smile. Just as he'd been the last day Sho had seen him on Earth, in Tokyo, in the neighborhood he loved. "Sho-kun, hello, it's Ohno-san~!"

Sho wanted to drop the tablet on the ground, race to the bridge, but the old man had wanted him to watch the whole thing.

"Sho-kun, you are the...fourteenth video I've made. I'm still not very good at it, I'm sorry. Anyhow, I'm the Caretaker here. I'd explain what that means, but I'd rather show you what you're missing out on." Sho watched Ohno get up off of the bed and head back to the tablet. "Here we go!"

The video cut out. Next Sho saw the stars. They were different stars, not that Sho could really tell. He just knew. They were the stars the Shirase had passed nearly sixty years ago. "Look at that, Sho-kun. Look what you're missing. It's beautiful out here. But when you get there, at least Aiba-chan will send you this video so you can see what space was like, and the scenery I got to see."

The video cut again. He could hear laughter, Aiba's laughter, and the picture zoomed out to show Aiba in the cargo room standing on top of a stack of bins. "Say hello to Sho-kun!" Ohno ordered, and Sho saw Aiba wave, looking exactly the same as he did now.

"Hello!" Aiba called, his voice echoing noisily.

The tablet turned around, so close to Ohno's face that the image was blurry. "Aiba-chan is an android. Isn't that weird? If you'd told me at the store that there were going to be androids, maybe I would have stayed home."

"Oi!" Aiba shouted.

He heard Ohno laugh noisily before the picture cut out again. And again the video showed tank 4237. Ohno was alone, sitting cross-legged on the floor and holding the tablet out so he could show both Sho's tank and himself. 

"Well, I don't know what else to put in this video. I guess I don't know you that well, not really. But that's okay." He saw a weak smile tugging at the corner of Ohno's mouth. He looked lonelier, far more unhappy than he had in the other bits of the video. "It's my job to keep you safe now, so I'll do my best, alright?"

The screen went black, and when there was nothing else to watch Sho was moving, moving faster than he ever had in his life. When he got to the bridge, Jun was back and sitting in the chair at the console, his knees pulled up onto the seat and his face buried there, crying.

Aiba was seated with the Caretaker.

No, Sho knew. Aiba was seated with _Ohno Satoshi_ , Sho's friend.

He knelt down in front of the old man, the man who'd been just about Sho's age when he was frozen. Aiba had his arm around him, holding onto him even though he was already gone. "Why?" Sho asked, barely able to see as tears swam in his eyes. All this time the Caretaker hadn't just been some unfortunate soul chosen for this job. He'd been Ohno, someone Sho had known. Someone Sho had begged to come along. "Why didn't he tell me who he was? Why did he erase his name?"

Aiba rubbed Ohno's arm, as though he was still with them. "He told me that he couldn't be Ohno Satoshi anymore. He finished making those videos, and he decided he would just be the Caretaker from then on. He never really explained why. It's not my job to question the Caretaker."

Ohno had lived a long life, Sho knew. And maybe it hadn't been entirely awful. But it hadn't been the life he'd deserved. He looked at the man's round cheeks, wondering how he'd gone these few months and hadn't thought, hadn't even suspected...

"Ohno-san, I'm sorry," Sho said, taking the man's hands in his own. They were still warm. "I'm sorry."

He heard movement behind him, felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Jun's. Jun was the leader of the ship now. The three of them were alone.

"We have to take care of him," Jun whispered. "Because he took care of us."

\--

Sho hadn't felt quite this broken since he'd first been unfrozen. Knowing now that Ohno-san, the simple, kind man from the convenience store had been watching over him for so long, Sho couldn't stop thinking over every interaction they'd had. Every cheap takeaway meal he'd bought, every time Ohno had told Sho what he was painting. How had Sho forgotten that the guy liked to paint?

There was an airlock at the opposite end of the command deck, and as he had done since Sakamoto-san had passed away, Aiba prepared everything. Sho wondered if Aiba had it the worst, never changing even as he watched all of his companions grow old and leave him behind again and again. Aiba clearly understood loss. But what exactly did he feel?

Aiba had wrapped Ohno's small body in bedsheets, and he'd placed him in one of the empty bins from the cargo hold. It had been painted black and dotted with silver and gold stars. Ohno had painted it himself years earlier, intending it to be his own coffin someday. Together, Jun and Sho lifted the bin into the airlock, setting it down near the doors. Soon, Ohno would be among the stars himself, joining all the Caretakers who had come before him. Joining Nino, Sho realized. They'd had to do this for Nino, too.

Sho moved away and into the corridor first, allowing Jun to have a final few moments with the person he was succeeding. Aiba stood quietly beside the control panel, eyes solemn and face sad. Sho found himself lacing his own fingers with Aiba's, feeling the inhuman chill of them. Aiba was as warm as the sun, but he was stuck in a cold, robotic form.

"It'll be okay," Aiba tried to assure him. Or maybe he was trying to assure himself. Did an android need reassurance?

They waited several minutes for Jun, and Sho couldn't help but watch the other man saying his goodbyes. He kept his hand firmly on top of the bin, and he wasn't crying. Not like he had earlier. Jun had to be strong now. Jun had to lead. Sho had learned enough about Jun these few months, had learned that Jun was probably promising Ohno that he would be a good Caretaker, that he'd protect the Shirase with everything he had. 

But Ohno had never needed convincing. He'd known from the start that Jun would be perfect.

Jun got to his feet, moving away and out of the airlock so Aiba could bring the blast doors down and keep them safe. They stood together, the three of them. How long would they be together? How long would it be before Jun chose a successor, and there would be four again?

Aiba had his hand over the eject button, and the sadness from before had vanished. He was smiling now, with affection and with what could only be love. The light on his neck was burning so brightly Sho thought the thing would pop.

"Goodbye, Caretaker-san," Aiba said, respecting Ohno's wishes to the very last. "And thank you for so many years of service."

Sho choked up when the button was pressed, and the alert siren sounded. A countdown began as the blast doors slowly started to open, letting out all of the air. The doors revealed the vastness of space and the starlight that had spent millions of years traveling to be here in this moment as Ohno joined them.

The bin lifted from the airlock floor, getting sucked out with a quick whoosh, and with that he was gone. The doors closed once more, shutting out the stars.

\--

**2558**

\--

"Ow!" Jun grumbled, trying to elbow the android away from him. "You idiot!"

Aiba laughed, keeping his hands firmly over Jun's eyes as he shoved the man forward into the small dining room. "Almost there!"

"Let go of me already!" Jun demanded, but of course, Aiba was stronger than ten of him.

Sho smiled, putting the finishing touches on the enormous bowl of rice. Some broccoli here, some carrots there. It was rather colorful, now that the food had been rehydrated. It was still going to taste boring, but at least it looked fancy. They didn't have any candles to light, but he supposed it was enough that they were still using an Earth chronometer to determine what date and time it was.

"Something smells burnt," Jun complained.

And then Aiba let him go.

"Happy birthday!" Sho and Aiba cheered. They'd even used some of the spare paper from Ohno's trunk to make a sign, which they'd set down in front of the rice bowl. _Happy birthday, Caretaker Jun! 30 Years Old!_

Jun scowled. "The hell is this?"

"Well, it's not like we can give you a cake," Aiba teased him, shoving Jun into the chair. "This is the next best thing."

"Who made this?" Jun grumbled.

"Chef Sakurai, at your service," Sho said, bowing as Jun picked up his chopsticks.

"No wonder it smells so bad," Jun complained, digging in anyway and taking a big bite.

Sho met Aiba's eyes, and the android smiled before they both sat down and helped themselves to their own meals. Jun was happy they'd thought of him, though he'd never admit it.

It had been almost two years now, living like this on board the Shirase. Much had remained the same. Jun still wore white clothes and white slippers, if only to be all the more defiant when Sho wandered the ship in his t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of obnoxiously colored socks. He'd even gotten Aiba to take his side, and now the android regularly wandered around in a pair of bright yellow pajama pants and a pink t-shirt. Who needed to match in space anyway? The ship itself kept all three of them busy, and they'd all gotten into a steady routine. The Shirase was run efficiently, and even Aiba admitted that it was helpful to have a third person around to help the Caretaker.

But where some things hadn't changed, others had. He and Jun had come to some degree of understanding. And if Sho had to say so, he considered them genuine friends more than just unavoidable shipmates now. Jun's trust in him had developed and grown as each month passed by. Sho was allowed to check the freezer level without supervision, could plot minor ship reroutes without needing to run his calculations past Aiba for approval. He was 32 years old, and Jun was finally treating him like a fellow adult, Sho thought with a grin.

As for how Sho felt about Jun himself, that was a little more complicated. Sure, they got along, and on most days Jun would even initiate conversation, talking about this or that system on board the ship or about hobbies they shared. Jun was apparently an avid soccer fan, and he kept promising Sho that they'd scan the ship's manifest someday, find one of the passenger bins that had a soccer ball they could borrow.

Sho liked Jun. He liked Jun a lot, and though it didn't interfere with the work they had to do (since they usually had to be in different places for much of the day), Sho didn't know what he was supposed to do about his feelings. Because it was ridiculous, of course, being in love. Even after two years, Sho hadn't said a word about it, to Jun or even to Aiba. Things were finally in balance now. Jun respected and trusted him, and the last thing Sho needed to do was force Jun back into the shell he'd been in when they'd first met or to make things between them awkward.

Because Jun was spoken for, wasn't he? He'd been in love with Nino, and Nino was gone, and Jun had spent nearly three years blaming himself, hating himself for it. Sho couldn't interfere with that, with any residual feelings Jun had for the person he'd lost. How could Sho even compare? Jun had let his family depart for Epsilon Eridani without him, had let all his friends go on ahead because he waited for Nino. How could Sho ever mean that much to him? There was no comparison.

So it was pointless, Sho figured, to try and pursue anything. He was content enough to run through the cargo hold with Jun, to eat meals with Jun, listen to Jun's endless complaints about the way Sho dared to dress. He and Jun were stuck with each other, and hopefully in time Sho would come around to the idea that maybe that was enough.

But it was so difficult sometimes. When Jun would crack a smile at one of Sho's terrible jokes or when he'd find Jun sleeping like a baby at the console on the bridge, exhausted from overworking himself. Or the way Jun looked when he worked, utterly focused and his large eyes nothing but brown pools of pure concentration. How could Sho ever stop feeling this way about him? He sometimes wished that Ohno was still around, that maybe he'd have some words of wisdom to get Sho out of his teenage hormonal funk. It was lonely as hell on a ship like this, with only your hand and an android for company. How had Ohno gotten through it?

Aiba had finally opened up a bit, taking over a year to drop the slightest hint that his android programming made him human enough where it counted. Sho knew that Caretaker Becky had lived to the ripe old age of 95, and so it was kind of gross to imagine her and Aiba...together somehow. But Becky hadn't always been 95, and Aiba had clearly loved her in his way, and maybe she'd loved him in return. 

So if an android and a human could figure this whole damn thing out, how come Sho couldn't?

\--

Sho made his way down the aisle, halfway through his shift. "Mizusawa-san, good morning," he said, passing by one tank. "Harada-san, Kuriyama-san." Green lights, green lights, green lights.

It was Jun who'd started Sho on the names. "If you learn their names, if you think about them as individuals," he'd explained back when he was still training Sho, "then you'll be better at protecting them. It won't be tank 101 failing, it would be Suzuki-san, and you'd want to save him all the more."

And it was true. It had taken Sho the better part of these two years trying to find a way to memorize names, or at least most of the people in each row. He was getting much better, spending his off time reading through profiles in the computer. Three Doujimas in a row, a family. Most families were placed together, and it helped immensely with remembering them. Ten Terajimas, three generations. And their neighbor, Wada-san. He filled in blanks that the computer left out or made things up if only to serve as a mnemonic device. He imagined that Takahashi three rows down had known Suzumiya in college, that Ogata and Ariyoshi had had an affair. 

They became people, all of them in need of safe passage to the new star system, and Sho understood how Jun felt, wanted to protect them just as strongly.

He made it to the next row, pausing in front of a tank with a blinking red light and letting out a quiet buzzing alarm. Recalibration necessary. There hadn't been one in a few weeks, and Sho tried not to panic. "Ah, it's okay, Yaguchi-kun." A child, eight years old. A little boy nestled in between his parents. "It's going to be okay."

The green light beneath the red one proved that the child wasn't in the danger zone yet, his vitals remaining steady. Sho crouched down and popped open the panel underneath Yaguchi-kun's tank. Recalibration could be a simple short circuit, easily repaired, or a completely frayed wire, requiring Jun or Aiba's help. After hundreds of years, Sho was amazed that more of the tanks didn't experience failures like this. The wiring on Sho's own tank had seemingly melted from the inside out, and that was why it had been impossible to fix his.

Sho's heart started to race when he was greeted with the sight of not one but three snapped wires. They'd been nudged inside the unit rather haphazardly by whoever had been responsible for freezing the boy. It was startling that a problem had waited this long to present itself. "I'll be right back," Sho told the tank's oblivious occupant, scrambling to his feet and racing for the comm link panel near the lift.

"Sho to the bridge, Sho to the bridge," he said hurriedly. The longer it took to get Yaguchi-kun recalibrated, the longer it would take him to finish the remainder of his shift and ensure that the rest of the passengers were safe.

"Aiba here!"

"Aiba, got a complex recalibration down here. I need immediate assistance."

"Ah, Sho-chan..." Aiba said in his calm manner. A few frayed wires never seemed to worry him too much, but that was Aiba for you. "We are coming up on a bit of tricky flying here, remember the solar storm we tried to avoid yesterday? Well, it's bigger than we thought, but yours truly will get us through it and..."

Sho was losing patience. "Aiba, can you just send Jun down please?"

"Roger that."

Sho shook his head, heading for the supply crates gathered near the lift, retrieving the tools he and Jun would need to get Yaguchi-kun back on the power grid safely. He had everything laid out and set up, the panel yanked fully out of the unit so Jun could work.

He heard Jun's voice moments later. "Sho? Sho, call out a number!"

"6179! 6-1-7-9!"

Jun came running at the sound of Sho's voice, his slippers clapping against the floor in a way that usually amused Sho, but not at a time like this.

"I've got everything set up here," Sho said, holding out a handful of wires for Jun to use. "Let me know what you need."

Jun took a look at the tank, crouching down to examine everything Sho had pulled together, and then he met Sho's eyes. "You do it."

"What?" Sho asked. He'd only just watched the more complex procedures up until now. Aiba had deft fingers - he could repair these things in a blink of an eye. Jun was slower, more methodical, but always accurate. "But one, two, three wires need to be replaced. You know I've never done anything this elaborate before."

"No, you haven't," Jun answered him abruptly. "But you need to learn."

Sho swallowed, looking away from Jun's eyes and down to the components before him. "Are you sure? Jun, I..."

"Tick tock," Jun reminded him. "I'm right here in case you fuck up. But you can do this."

"Thanks," Sho muttered. It was hard sometimes to imagine that Jun had been a teacher back on Earth, and Sho wondered if he'd used these same sort of "motivational tactics" to keep his students in line.

Well, if Jun was willing to put this much trust in his abilities, he had to do well. He spoke out loud as he worked, every step of the way, and Jun didn't interrupt once. Slowly but surely, Sho kept his hand steady, removing the destroyed wires and replacing them with new ones as the tank continued to buzz in distress. He double and triple checked what he'd done, his heart beating like crazy knowing that Jun was watching him. A kid's life was at stake here, and he couldn't afford to mess up.

It felt like an eternity had elapsed, but he was finally done, screwing the panel into place. The red light switched back to green. The readout went from "Recalibration Necessary" back to "Operational" and Sho let out an exhausted sigh.

"Thank god," he murmured before hearing some polite clapping beside him. He looked over, seeing Jun grinning at him.

"See, was it that hard?"

It was insanely hard, Sho wanted to snap back at him, holding someone's life in his hands like that. Especially an eight year old boy who'd barely had a chance to live on Earth before being frozen and shipped off to another world.

Instead he just shook his head, shakily getting to his feet. His legs felt like rubber, and he had to steady himself against one of the tanks. Jun looked like he was about to step forward, grab hold of his arm, but he seemed to be forcing himself to stay in place.

"You did well," Jun told him, his voice softer and far less teasing than he'd been before. "Really well, Sho-kun. Honestly."

He wasn't used to this kind of attitude from Jun, and he felt himself flush at the attention. He hoped the dim lighting would cover that up. "Thanks. But I suppose I have a lot more work to do."

"Right," Jun said, backing away. "Of course. I was in the middle of something anyway. I'll..see you later then."

"Yeah."

And then Jun was gone, leaving Sho to his work and his unrelenting attraction. "You can't just do that," he said out loud in irritation as soon as he was alone again.

\--

"You stupid, stupid robot," Jun was complaining in the medical lab a week later. Aiba said nothing, merely sitting on the table and allowing Jun to attend to him.

Sho stood idly by, watching as Jun desperately tried to patch over the damaged, broken skin. If it had been anyone else down in the engine room when the conduit had blown, they'd be dead. Sho was sickeningly aware of that as Aiba didn't move a fake muscle, having no pain sensors. If it had been Sho's turn to work in the engine room or Jun's...

Even though the small explosion had not been threatening to the ship and Aiba had managed to contain the fire with little trouble, it had burned straight through much of the skin on his left shoulder, part of his back and down his left arm. There was a terrible stench in the med lab and it turned Sho's stomach - not of burnt human skin, but of burnt whatever the material was that made Aiba Aiba.

"This color isn't going to match," Jun said, adhering the makeshift patches to Aiba's skin. There wasn't much by way of android medical care on board. "You're going to have a bizarre looking mark here."

"It's okay," Aiba said. "No harm done."

"And what would we do without you, huh?" Jun asked, giving him a light smack on the head. "You're supposed to be the brains of the outfit here. Don't put yourself in danger alone. Sho-kun and I have expiration dates. This ship can't afford to lose you."

"I'll be more careful," Aiba vowed.

The thought of losing Aiba was a terrifying one, and he could tell that Jun felt the same way. Aiba was the one thing around the Shirase that wasn't supposed to change. 

Jun finished up, and Sho was fairly certain he would have made for a terrible surgeon back on Earth. Aiba's arm and shoulder were now a patchwork of splotchy brown against his usual, lighter tan coloring. The android hopped off the table, flexing his arm, rotating his shoulder. "Good as new. Well, not factory-issue," Aiba admitted, frowning slightly. "Maybe in 50 years we can wake up another female Caretaker, okay? I can brag about my battle scars."

Sho chuckled, but Jun wasn't in a joking mood. "You take care of the tanks. I doubt anything's going to explode in your face down there," Jun ordered, and Aiba laughed, pulling one of Sho's t-shirts back up and over his body.

"Yes, sir. Right away, sir."

They watched the android leave, and Jun sat down on the med table himself. "He could have died," Jun grumbled, looking scared as hell.

"But he didn't," Sho reassured him, although 'died' probably wasn't the proper term. Not that Sho could think of a better one. He found himself walking over to the table, sitting down beside Jun. "And he kept the ship safe. He was doing his job."

"This entire ship is a deathtrap," Jun said quietly. "If it's not the threat of one of the tanks failing, it's having to rely on people like you and me to make sure we don't crash into a damn meteor or something. We're not scientists or trained pilots or anything."

"You and I were frozen for three hundred years, Jun. We made it this far, and we'll just have to trust that the person who comes after us keeps it going," Sho said. "It's all about trust, really."

"Well," Jun sighed, "I've never been the most trusting person. I'm sure you've noticed."

Sho found himself smiling despite the dire nature of their conversation. "I have."

"I'm sorry," Jun admitted, and Sho thought he'd misheard him at first. He was pretty sure he'd never heard Jun apologize for anything, ever. "For all that time I spent mad at you for no good reason. I never stopped to think about how lucky I was, getting something none of the other Caretakers had gotten. Another person to help them out. I was just...things were different then..."

"Jun..." Sho knew why Jun had been the way he was. As the months went on, he understood it all the more, the enormity of what Jun had lost. "It's alright..."

"It's not," Jun protested, and the urge to put an arm around him, to simply touch him, grew. Sho had to sit on his hands to keep them still. "What I did...what I tried to do, back then..."

"Jun, you don't have to..."

"I was selfish and I was scared of being alone, and I killed him." 

Jun had never said anything about what had happened with Nino, not once in two years. Sho had always suspected that Aiba spoke with him about it from time to time, because if Jun kept it all bottled up, he'd never be able to function as well as he did now. But they never said anything when Sho was around.

"I can never forgive myself for what I did," Jun said, turning to look at him. It was hard to breathe, seeing Jun's eyes focusing on him. They'd never been this close before, not ever, and Sho didn't know what to do. There were spots on Jun's face, above and below his lips, tiny little imperfections that made him seem just perfect in Sho's eyes. He wanted to memorize all of Jun's imperfections.

"I'll never forgive myself, but I can't let it rule my life forever. It's not what he would have wanted for me. I lost him, and I've worked so hard to not be selfish like that again. Maybe that's why I've always been so cold to you. I didn't want to let it happen again. But as I said, I'm still so lucky. We saved you, Sho-kun, and I'm so glad we did."

Jun hesitated then, unsure of what to do next. It had seemed impossible to Sho all of this time, the thought of Jun feeling something for him in return. But it was so obvious in the way Jun looked at him now. How long had he felt this way and kept it to himself? How long had he denied himself this chance out of loyalty to the person he'd lost?

"I just wanted you to know that," Jun admitted. He still wasn't ready, Sho could tell, and he moved back, allowing Jun to slip off of the medical table. "I need to...I'll be on the bridge."

He watched him walk away, wondering if he should have just gone ahead and done something, now that he at least knew Jun had feelings for him. "Jun," he said, making the other man halt in his tracks. "Tell me about him sometime. Tell me about Nino."

Jun left the room with a nod. Sho thought he was going to have a heart attack. Jun wanted to move on, Jun was trying his very best to move on. And he wanted to move on with Sho. So Sho would wait. After all, they had the rest of their lives to figure things out.

\--

A few days later they were in between shifts on the freezer level. It was the time when he and Jun usually met up in the cargo hold for a run, but instead of showing up at Sho's door in sneakers, he came dressed in his usual ridiculous attire. Sho, of course, had dressed for a run, in shorts and a thin t-shirt, and when Jun casually asked "would you like to come to my room instead?" he was mortified.

But he ignored his own distress, leaping at the chance. Jun was a private person, always had been, and Aiba never even went into his room. Sho skipped the sneakers, following behind Jun like a lonely puppy, watching as he punched in his code to unlock the door down the corridor.

It was a mirror image of Sho's room, furniture-wise, with the single bed, bedside table, and chest of drawers. But unlike Sho, who had his clothes strewn every which way and his floor littered with books and manga that he'd fortunately packed for himself, Jun's room was neater. There were two storage trunks in here, and Sho easily figured out that Jun had brought Nino's trunk in here as well.

"You asked me about him," Jun said quietly, gesturing for Sho to have a seat on the bed (which Jun had taken care to make before inviting Sho inside). "About Nino." Jun knelt down on the floor beside one of the trunks, pulling it open and smiling. "He packed light."

Even from his vantage point, the trunk only contained a few things. A couple of pairs of jeans, some bright and obnoxious underwear, a few shirts. On top of the clothes lay an acoustic guitar and a few decks of cards. That was it, all this Ninomiya Kazunari had thought to bring with him to a new solar system.

Sho couldn't help laughing. "That's it?"

"That's it," Jun said with a definitive nod, setting the lid back down. "I packed four trunks, paid extra. Three of them are still in the cargo hold. Nino thought I was an idiot for doing so."

"Four?" Sho couldn't imagine how much extra that had cost.

"I liked to cook," Jun explained, "so I brought half my kitchen with me. And I like to read, so one of my trunks is just books. Then I liked clothes so..."

"But you wear the clothes that they put in plastic wrap, Jun. If you've been hiding away a trunkful of clothes, at least let me have it if you're going to let it go to waste."

Jun grinned, seeming far more comfortable to sit around and simply talk with Sho than he'd ever been before. Maybe his semi-confession the other day had finally allowed him to relax. Not that Sho could relax very much.

"I'll think about it. Don't need you stretching out any of my favorite shirts." Jun lifted the lid of his own trunk. "Nino and I taught at the same junior high school. I taught math, he taught music. Not a likely combination."

"Not likely," Sho repeated, watching Jun dig around inside his trunk for something. He pulled out something Sho hadn't seen in ages. It was a CD. Back when they'd left Earth, the things had been considered antiques.

"I know what you're thinking," Jun said, a bit presumptuous as usual. "What the hell, right? But this was Nino all over, recording music on these things. This," he said, tapping the thin plastic lid of the CD case, "this was the first CD he made for me. He called a declaration of love, I called it...well, something not very nice."

Sho raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

Jun held it up, and despite three hundred years of travel, the writing on the disc had not vanished one bit. In handwriting that was so intentionally small Sho had to get off the bed and wander over to read it, he discovered the apparent "charms" of Ninomiya Kazunari.

"Love Songs..." Sho read, squinting as Jun held the disc up for him to try and decipher, "Love Songs about Jun-pon's...Thick Leg Hair?"

"Fourteen different songs on the topic, in fact," Jun grumbled, and Sho burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry, I'm still on the Jun- _pon_ aspect of this whole thing," he said, and Jun swatted him away with the CD case, dumping it back in the trunk. Sho was disappointed that he'd never get a chance to meet Nino. He sounded like a crazy guy, and Jun's total opposite.

"And if I ever hear you call me that, you will be airlocked, and that is a promise."

Sho calmed down a bit, heading back to sit down on the bed as Jun rummaged around in the trunk. "I promise, I will not call you...by that moniker. But is your leg hair really that exciting?"

Jun slid his leg out for inspection, lifting his white pant leg up to his knee. "Well?"

Sho grinned. "On the thicker side of normal."

"Oh, he would have liked you, Sho-kun," Jun grumbled, tugging his pant leg back down. "Nino would have liked you a lot."

Jun unearthed another dozen CD cases, with Nino's musical stylings ranging from an entire CD about odd-looking people he had encountered on Tokyo subway trains to another about students at the junior high school he couldn't stand. All the while Jun talked about Nino with such affection, such kindness that Sho realized more than ever what Jun had lost. And yet, Nino was a memory for Jun, a strong one, but a memory nonetheless. 

The time seemed to run away from them, and Jun got to his feet, looking embarrassed. "You should probably...I mean, it's your turn to inspect the engine room."

Sho got up too, realizing that he should pay better attention to his responsibilities. It was too easy now to be lulled into Jun's orbit, wanting to spend every second possible with him. But their duty to the Shirase was more important, even if Sho's heart didn't necessarily agree.

"You're right," Sho said, heading straight for the door. He turned back, hovering in the doorway. "But thank you for sharing all this with me. I appreciate it."

Jun stayed where he was beside his trunk, full of memories of the person he'd loved. Still loved, Sho could tell. 

"I like you," Jun suddenly blurted out, holding his fists at his side like a kid in grade school making his very first confession. Jun was gorgeous, so Sho imagined that a lot of people had beaten him to the punch on love confessions back on Earth. "I don't know exactly what to do about it, and it is pissing me off like you wouldn't believe."

Sho smiled, shaking his head. "Jun, I don't know what to do either. But I like you too."

"Get to work then," he said, trying to look serious again but utterly failing. "I'm sick of looking at your face."

"I'm sick of yours, too," he teased back, heading out and down the corridor. Idiots, he thought, the both of them were real idiots.

\--

Neither of them seemed willing to make the first move, and over the next few weeks it started to become an odd game of who would break down first.

Sho found himself becoming all the more efficient in his work, never losing sight of what was expected of him, but getting the job done quickly with the knowledge that it might allow him an extra five minutes on the bridge with Jun, another few kilometers to jog with Jun down in the cargo hold.

The first act of war was waged over personal space. Sho had learned over the past two years that Matsumoto Jun was very fond of his personal bubble, only reaching out of it most times to swat Aiba over the head. But now that he and Sho were being extra cautious and extra weird around one another, Jun's defensive wall was starting to show a few cracks.

He'd sneak up on Sho when Sho was on the bridge, giving him a light smack on the back of the head. He made time to eat at the same time as Sho, ensuring that their fingers brushed when passing bowls and glasses between them. And Sho fought back, jogging close enough at Jun's side that their sleeves would brush, arms bumping awkwardly. He'd make up excuses for standing right behind Jun when he was at the command console.

The second act of war escalated things to a physical level. Jun always seemed to be just getting out of the shower room down the hall when Sho was off to take his own, sauntering down the corridor with wet hair and a towel around his waist, almost daring Sho to do something about it. Sho retaliated, taking his shirt off when they jogged around the track, and running harder to force Jun to keep pace with him.

It got to the point of being so ridiculous that Aiba finally said something when he and Sho were down in the engine room, examining some power coils.

"Why don't the two of you just have sex already?"

Sho nearly unhooked the wire from one of the units, turning around to glare at the android. "You're being meddlesome."

"There are three of us on this ship, Sho-chan, and it's not like I can power down when you two make faces at each other," Aiba pointed out, "and it's been what, two years of dancing around like that? Aren't you going to explode with all your humanity and feelings? Becky and I..."

"Becky and you _what_ ," Sho prodded him, narrowing his eyes. Aiba was always good at clamming up when it came to details, as though the long lost lady Caretaker he'd loved might still be a ghost haunting the ship, ready to fry his circuits if he so much as implied that they'd probably had sex on every deck of the ship, being the only non-frozen bodies on it.

"Never mind," Aiba complained. "I'm just saying that if you need me to pull your shifts so you can get on with things already, it's not a big deal. I'm a robot, as you're both so fond of reminding me, it's not like I have anything else to do."

Sho blushed in embarrassment."Aiba-kun..."

He laughed, light on his neck glowing cheerfully. "I'm not mad, you know. Even if I was programmed with the ability to feel that way, I'm speaking to you as someone who has to work with you for as long as you're both alive. You have an opportunity here. You both work so hard to protect this ship. I've worked with plenty of Caretakers, and honestly, you two are amazing. So stop worrying so much. Save your worries for the tanks and the occasional asteroid."

"What if it doesn't work out?" Sho mumbled. "What if things change? It's not like I can beam myself to another ship."

Aiba patted Sho on the back. "If you've made it this long without killing each other, I really don't see many larger obstacles to deal with."

Sho turned back to the coils, shaking his head in disbelief. "I can't believe I'm taking relationship advice from an android."

"You try living for 300 years and see if you don't pick up a few pointers."

\--

He was going to do it. He was going to do it, damn it. Had it ever been this difficult on Earth, Sho wondered.

Yes, his brain reminded him. It _had_ been this difficult. Sho had never had many lasting relationships, on account of being attracted to men in the first place. He'd had a kind-of, sort-of girlfriend in college, and that had been the longest relationship he'd ever had. Anything else had been one night stands picked up in bars or a sympathetic ear whenever new developments made the news about the Earth's continued deterioration. That got everyone left on the planet laid most of the time.

So Sho was used to difficulty. His life, he realized, was just one long streak of bad luck. Thirty-two years of it. Misfires on relationships, a job that would really amount to nothing in a new solar system (they needed farmers, not journalists), a broken cryo tank en route to his brand new life, and of course he was embarrassingly in love with the last man in the universe. Not that he liked Jun _because_ he was literally the only available option. His affections for Jun just happened to be a coincidence despite their situation.

He was going to tell Jun all these things in the morning, offer himself completely and finally discover what it would feel like to kiss Jun, wrap his arms around him, to map his body with more thoroughness than Sho exhibited when he pored over the star charts the computer spat at him. He was going to take charge and make the first move, he was sure of it.

But he had still never allowed Jun to show him how to lock the damn door.

Sho was changing into a pair of pajama bottoms for bed, the pants halfway up his legs when his door slid open, revealing Jun looking immediately annoyed with him. Whether Jun was annoyed with Sho for not locking it or because Sho was mostly undressed, he didn't say.

He awkwardly stumbled his way out of the pant legs, the pajamas now a lump on the floor and leaving himself only clad in his boxer shorts. Jun turned, tapping at the console on the wall while Sho stood there, all his careful planning and determination gone to waste. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. There wasn't much that was romantic about orange and green striped boxer shorts and his messy quarters.

"What are you even doing?" he spat at Jun, who was programming Sho's console without his consent. "You better tell me the number you're using."

Jun turned around, eyes drifting almost immediately from Sho's face and looking straight down. "Maybe I'll tell you the number later so you can let yourself out."

"Asshole," Sho complained.

Jun dimmed the lights a bit before stepping over Sho's haphazardly strewn books and clothes. "How many tanks do we monitor?"

A pop quiz? NOW?

"Seven thousand, four hundred and forty-nine."

And then Jun was in his space, all long, graceful limbs and wicked eyes. "Is it terrible of me to be happy yours broke?"

Sho swallowed, crossing his arms. "Yeah, I think that's pretty terrible actually."

"Well," Jun admitted, stepping closer and wrapping his arms around Sho's neck, moving so close their mouths were only inches apart. Daring Sho to do something about it. "If you haven't noticed by now, Sho-kun, I'm really awful at knowing the right things to say."

"I've noticed. So stop talking," Sho said quietly before making the most nervewracking move of his life. He closed the distance between them, tilting his head the slightest bit and bringing his lips against Jun's for the very first time. His mouth was warm, and nothing but an open invitation.

Now that he'd started, he didn't want to stop, pulling Jun flush against him and kissing him harder. All the silly behaviors they'd been exhibiting the past several weeks seemed to slip away as Jun's fingers moved against his neck, up and into his hair. Sho had to touch him, sliding his fingers inside Jun's shirt, feeling Jun jump at the ticklish sensation and then retaliate with a slight nip of teeth against Sho's lips that only urged him on.

He moved away from touching Jun's side to the firm skin of his back, sliding his fingers possessively up to his broad shoulders, wanting him so badly it hurt. He was unable to keep from pushing his hips against Jun's, hearing a groan of satisfaction that proved encouraging. He finally willed himself to break them apart, helping Jun to get his shirt off and onto the floor, letting it mingle among Sho's "lesser" clothes. This was probably not going to take very long, Sho realized as soon as he got his hand inside the waistband of Jun's slacks and then his underwear, hearing the other man's sharp intake of breath as Sho started to tug them down. 

Jun's mouth was at Sho's neck, licking and biting at the skin there, marking it as his own, and Sho willingly complied, tilting his head further so Jun could explore, taking the chance to slide his hands down Jun's narrow waist and around to his backside. The Shirase's constant hum, their duties on board seemed to fall away, slipping from their minds as soon as Jun pushed them, knocking Sho onto his back on the mattress.

Jun straddled him, a leg on either side of Sho's thighs and slowly he leaned down, stretching easily like a predatory cat and grinding himself against Sho as he moved forward, pinning Sho's wrists with his hands. Flexible, Sho remembered with a large degree of satisfaction. He groaned as the heat and friction between his legs increased, feeling himself strain against the thin fabric of his boxers, feeling Jun just as hard and needy against him. 

He fought back against Jun's tight grip, arching his body up and making Jun lose himself for a moment. Sho managed to turn them onto their sides, fingers desperately trailing down his own body, aching as he unbuttoned the fly of his boxers, taking himself in his hand just as Jun brought their lips together again, slipping his tongue into Sho's mouth.

It wouldn't be long now, Sho realized as Jun slid his own hand between them, gasping as Jun's hand wrapped around him, bringing them both together. He arched instantly into Jun's touch, desperately trying not to come yet and understanding it was a pretty useless hope. But they'd have years and years to get used to each other, to take it slow. Now that he finally had Jun, felt and smelled Jun all around him, it didn't really matter if it all ended as soon as it started.

He pulled himself away from Jun's mouth. "Open your eyes," he muttered as Jun's hand feverishly worked between them. "Look at me."

Jun obeyed, and as soon as their eyes met, as soon as he saw how badly Jun needed him, wanted him, Sho couldn't take any more. He came first and Jun followed a few frenzied heartbeats later, no better than a pair of horny teenagers, and Sho decided to deal with his bedsheets later. He untucked them with an irritated sigh, nudging Jun out of the way and tossing them on the floor. Jun chuckled, curling back up at Sho's side on the bare mattress, taking up more than his fair share of what limited room was available.

"Sho-kun," Jun murmured, sweat glistening on his skin as Sho felt the warmth and comfort of his body beside him. 

"Yeah?"

Jun yanked Sho's pillow out from under his head, stealing it for himself and snickering under his breath. "Good night."

\--

Aiba seemed overly interested in details over the next few months. For an android who clearly knew what sex was, he was always prodding Sho for information. Sho wasn't one to kiss and tell, not that Aiba had anyone to whisper Sho's secrets to. Unless he spoke to the people in the tanks telepathically. Sho had felt bad at first, worrying that Aiba was feeling like a third wheel on board the Shirase...and then Sho remembered that jealousy wasn't part of Aiba's programming. Sheer curiosity, however, was.

"Have you done it in the lift yet?" Aiba would ask as easily as he'd ask to check Sho's vitals in the med lab. "Do I need to disinfect it?"

"Where'd that bruise on your arm come from? Rough night?"

"Hey, I could try and figure out how to switch off the gravity controls in your room. You could do it upside down!"

Sho loved the android, he really did, but at the same time he was rather grateful that Aiba couldn't drag himself away from the bridge or the freezer level when he and Jun were together to find these answers out for himself. The thought of a robot catching them in the act wasn't Sho's idea of a good time. 

Being with Jun was still a work in progress. Their duties obviously came first, and Jun remained as diligent as ever, logging long hours every day and expecting the very best from Sho. And when it came to free time, Jun still liked to think he was in charge, Mr. Big Shot Caretaker, giving orders over the comms for Sho to join him in the cargo hold one day, the engine room the next. Not that Sho had much reason to complain, but Aiba used the comms too, and he didn't want to hear Aiba's giggly voice echoing through the cargo hold when Jun had him bent over one of the bins.

While he was fairly certain it would be an eternity before he tired of Jun physically, he was also sure that Jun was a good match for him in other ways. Jun continued to open his heart, and Sho did the same. They spent hours talking, learning what one another's lives had been like before they'd been frozen, the dreams they'd hoped to accomplish on their new world. They spoke of the people they'd loved and lost. Their families, their friends, Ohno from the convenience store, and Nino the music teacher. 

It wasn't always a somber time - talking about what they'd lost only reassured them of their duty to those who were still frozen, those whose safety was up to them to guarantee. Over seven thousand souls counting on them to guide them forward. They couldn't change what had happened to them, and they wouldn't experience the same future as their family or friends, but they could live now, enjoy the present.

They had Aiba and his stories and his constant meddling, they had the videos and wisdom of the Caretakers who'd come before them. They had laughter and memories and a bottomless supply of freeze-dried rations. They had trinkets from Earth and constant work to keep their hands from going idle. They could sit on the bridge and say hello to the stars that no one else from Earth would see in such a configuration ever again. They had the comfort of one another, fingers twining in the darkness, the sounds of each other's steady breathing despite the silence of space that enveloped the ship. He and Jun had a bond that was impossible to put into words.

Sakurai Sho was grateful for these things. He was grateful to be alive.

\--

These things proved to be a comfort to Sho as the years passed, and the Shirase moved ever onward. There would always be tanks in need of repair, engines in need of a tune-up, and their mission to carry out. And in the years that Sho lived, there was always a warm body beside him in the night.

Maybe someday that warm body would no longer be there, or his would be the one to vanish first. But unlike on Earth his body wouldn't be burned away to ash. Instead he had the comfort of knowing that he'd join the stars, become a glimmer in the sky that might be visible to someone in the Epsilon Eridani system in two hundred years. Or maybe two thousand. 

Just one among those who had given all of themselves to see their people home.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:  
> -This is loosely inspired by _Across the Universe_ , a book by Beth Revis. Well, mostly just the 'person on a spaceship in suspended animation is woken early' plotline. I think I diverted from her book quite a bit afterwards, seeing as how I'm still reading it and don't know how it ends LOL. And I owe a bit to the movie Prometheus as well for the idea of an ageless android watching over the ship while everyone else is asleep - but I wasn't in the mood for evil AI, so it's mostly just goofy Aiba who never grows old. 
> 
> -My cousin got married recently, and he and his wife used Across the Universe as the song they walked down the aisle to. Right in the kokoro, you guys, it's like I was destined to write this story.
> 
> -The Shirase was named for Japanese explorer Shirase Nobu.


End file.
